Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

To Zephacleas, all of this was merely proof that Sigmar had been right to cast the Stormhosts into battle when he had. Battle had been joined and would only end in victory or death.

‘As it should be,’ he said out loud. The Stormcasts had been forged for war, and were ready for whatever awaited them beyond the Gates of Azyr.

The sound of his voice was swallowed by the vastness before him. Stars pinwheeled about the fraying edges of swirling nebulas and shimmering galactic coronas — it was a sea of colour and light, but eerily silent and stretching into an impossible infinity.

He’d never truly understood Gardus’s fascination with the precipice of the Sigmarabulum, and what lay beyond, but he had to admit that the sight was soothing in its way. He laughed. Soothing, yes, and also invigorating. Here was the sum totality of existence, wrought upon celestial canvas and laid out for his eyes. There was a chill beauty to it, but also a ferocity — the stars lived and fought and died even as men. Brief flickers of light against the dark, soon forgotten, but always replaced.

And if that does not describe the Stormcast, I do not know what does, he thought.

No, Zephacleas. Never forgotten. Never that, a voice rumbled in his mind. It was a warm voice, but powerful, like a summer storm. Nonetheless, Zephacleas found himself bowing beneath its weight.

‘My lord Sigmar — is it time?’ he asked, fighting to hide the eagerness in his voice. The question was moot. Sigmar would not have deigned to speak with him unless the need was great. ‘Are we to be cast once more into battle?’

Yes, Zephacleas. The Astral Templars are needed.

Sigmar’s voice echoed through his skull like the peal of a bell, shaking him down to his marrow. The God-King spoke with the voice of the heavens themselves, and in his words could be heard the roar of comets, the hum of nebulae, and the endless echo of the black between the stars.

‘Where, my lord, the Greenglades? The City of Branches?’ he asked, wondering which of his brother Stormcasts was in need of aid. Where in the Jade Kingdoms would Sigmar cast his thunderbolt? Wherever it was, it was long past time, Zephacleas thought. He’d had enough of quiet contemplation. Now he wanted a fight.

The Ghyrtract Fen. The Hallowed Knights are beset by an enemy far beyond them.

An image filled Zephacleas’s mind — he saw figures in shining armour confronted by something massive and foul, the sight of which filled him with an icy dread. This was no brute monster or champion, swollen by the power of its fell god, but a shard of a god itself. A creature beyond any single Stormcast, Lord-Celestant or not.

‘I am on my way, my lord. The Astral Templars shall not fail you,’ Zephacleas said, pushing himself to his feet. He rose smoothly, despite the weight of his armour. Helmet under his arm, and hammer in hand, he turned back towards the magnificent halls of Sigmaron. He could smell death in the air, but whose he could not say.

Hold on my friend. I am coming.

Gardus knew what the beast was the moment it revealed its full bulk, though he’d never seen one before. Great Unclean One, he thought. Sigmar guide me, and lend me strength. ‘Steady,’ he said, glancing to either side. A murmur of uncertainty swept the ranks of the retinue behind him. It fell to him to see that it went no farther. ‘Hold your positions.’

The greater daemon of Nurgle was an imposing sight, perched atop the stone steps. Rippling folds of fat marked its wide frame, and its flesh was by turns stretched tight or else torn and oozing, exposing the foulness within. Swollen entrails spilled from these ragged canyons, dripping bile and tarry blood upon the stones. Immense pustules flowered at its joints, and boils shiny with poison decorated its leering countenance and flabby chest like gaudy jewellery. Its sloping head was little more than a lump upon its shoulders, and two great antlers of stained and stinking bone rose from the sides of its skull. Tatters of spoiled meat hung from the horns, flapping like obscene battle standards as the creature swayed and laughed. It wore a rust-pitted pauldron and spaulder on one arm, as well as a ragged hauberk of grimy mail, which gaped over its belly, and it clutched a gigantic, filth-encrusted chain-headed flail in one hand.

‘Form up,’ Gardus boomed, fighting back a wave of nausea. The thing was every foul thought given form, and he felt sick just being in its vicinity. A nearby Liberator staggered, vomit spewing from the mouthpiece of his mask. Gardus caught him and helped him stand.

‘Easy,’ he murmured. The man began to speak, to try and explain himself, but Gardus silenced him with a shake of his head. ‘There is no shame in it,’ he said softly. ‘Take your place in line, Stormcast.’ He turned as the reverberations of the word shivered out into a hum. A black cloud rose from the tree line — flies, he realised. More of them spilled out of the archway, and even erupted from the diseased flesh of the daemon.

‘By the realm celestial,’ he muttered, as the clouds of flies wove together, coalescing about the Great Unclean One’s antlered head. ‘Form up, on me,’ he roared out, striking his weapons together. Lightning snarled at the point of impact. ‘Fall back and form up. Hold the line, whatever else comes through that stinking portal.’

Around him, the Steel Souls hastened to obey, pulling back from the corrupted stone idols and the archway. Gardus grunted in satisfaction as he heard his command repeated up and down the line of retinues by his subordinates. Feros and the others could be counted on to do as he ordered, without hesitation.

‘Form up, form up… so disciplined,’ the daemon rumbled. ‘Like a row of children’s toys, lined up neatly for Bolathrax’s amusement, ready to play.’ The great horned head tilted, and the bulging eyes fixed on Gardus. ‘But this is not a game you can win, whelp. If I were you, I would run home and tell my god that this place belongs to another.’

The daemon’s eyes burned into his own. For a moment, he felt a terrible heat, as if he’d been struck by a fever. Then came a terrible tugging sensation, as if long fingers were stirring through his thoughts, and plucking out those of interest. He saw the rows of cots, upon which moss-lepers and flux sufferers lay in agony . He felt weak, and heard the screams as the invaders crested the wall and entered Demesnus Harbour… he almost stumbled where he stood, but the strange sensations faded almost as quickly as they’d come. Bolathrax grunted.

‘Tough mite, strong… stronger than I expected. The quality of your essence has much improved since last we met.’

‘We have never met, beast,’ Gardus said. He knew, even as he spoke, that he shouldn’t bandy words with the daemon. It was a lie made flesh. But something, some nagging urge, compelled him on. ‘I think I would remember one as ugly as you.’

His words echoed across the clearing, and Bolathrax leaned forward, eyes narrowed. A slow smile crept across the daemon’s blubbery face as the ranks of Hallowed Knights began to ring with the sound of hammers striking shields. The slow, steady rhythm drowned out the humming buzz of the daemon’s arrival, and for a moment, Gardus thought that the noise alone might drive the creature back into whatever hell had spawned it. But instead, it shook its head like a disappointed parent.

‘So be it,’ Bolathrax said. The daemon raised one fat paw and spoke a single, deplorable word. Gardus felt his teeth rattle in his jaw from the force of the word. The gathering clouds of flies suddenly spilled towards the Stormcast lines.

‘Shields up,’ Gardus roared, setting his feet as the deluge of insects drew close. Only now they weren’t just insects, but other things. Long limbed, bloat-bellied shapes appeared in the cloud, loping towards them, dragging rust-pitted blades behind them. Plaguebearers, Gardus thought. Similarly with Bolathrax, he had never seen them before, but he knew them all the same. He recognised them in the pit of his stomach and at the base of his mind, as one mortal enemy knows another. One-eyed, their rotten entrails leaking out, the plaguebearers radiated the same wrongness as Bolathrax himself, though to a lesser degree… as if they did not belong in the world.